24 Hours in A&E
by SaintJacTheGingerNinja
Summary: "There's no point lying Jac, to me or to yourself. Lying isn't going to make things better. Lying isn't going to prove a point. You jolly well might be able to pretend that everything's fine, but each untruth will build, build so high that, eventually, there will be no point of return from such a fabrication." People are treading carefully around Jac, but she can't remember why.
1. Chapter 1

**This story has around four parts, and three of them are written, so updates will be quite regular I hope. Enjoy :)**

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Her tiny digits webbed across the spread of her mother's chest, so china-like in appearance that the minuscule being took on the likeness of a sprawled doll. Unlike such a plaything, the small baby only had a cerise tuft of hair protruding from the centre of her head; she was nothing like the toys her mother had been handed at care homes - they could be meticulously decapitated, whereas she, her bundle of joy, was the epicentre of fragility. Eyes held firmly shut, the shallow stretch of lines that crossed her face were the result of deep concentration - the need to suss out the new world before it could be taken on. Her bottom lip receded behind the first and had doused her chin with saliva; it dripped down the beginnings of her neck and onto the folded piece of blanket. The slight breeze tickled the child's form, but the tiny hairs on her bare limbs remained redundant and forgotten, in mentality and purpose. There was almost no sound, yet the mother and baby resided in maternity: that vast and amorphous jungle of new-borns and doe-eyed family. Softly gripping her child, the mother tensed as the door slid open, sensing an unknown presence with the instinct of a feral cat. The white, emotionless figures hunched over the bundle encased in her arms, prodded, poked, and reattached their hands to clipboards. Blurred by the torrent of drugs, their faces were only defined by curvatures and crevices, yet she could see her child perfectly. They smashed their pens onto paper, and the click clatter of scribbles spilled into the silence. Legs folding into the floor of tiles, one man hovered by her bed in a hologram-like state, or the miasma of her mind had deemed his movements so. He prised the baby from her scrambled fingers and she bounced carelessly in his arms.

And, then, she was taken away.

Jac awoke with a start; she forced her eyes open with a pull of will and explored her chest with the appendage of her hands, anxious for the weight that was no longer there. They brushed against a wet trail of dribble that had trickled between her cleavage and she rubbed the watery prison of DNA between her fingertips, a kind of personal victory: her concrete evidence of the past 24 hours. She traced along the risen protuberance of scratches in amazement; the redness of such an unlevelled surface contrasted bitterly to the pallor of her skin. Her child must have wriggled in her cocoon, she decided after a while. Such a thought, or a distant memory, hurled her mechanisms into overdrive; her quickened breath and palpitated heart were the results of an explosion of adrenaline. Disquiet sensations came in quick succession, the shrapnel from the aftermath of the blast. Her grasp hooked around the drip that had become her extra limb and yanked it from the confines of her body, making her blood splatter wildly. Hands found hers and wrestled the wires from her clutches. The same hands pushed her down despite the tangle of arms and legs and frantic blows. She clawed at her attacker's scrubs, desperate for release. There was a crack as knuckle met unguarded skin and he staggered back, which is when she look upon him for the first time.

_Jonny. _

She should have recognised him in an instant, yet her mind was still hazed with sedative and her eyes blinded by a visor of tears. His form was blurry and unclear. The sob that caught in her throat twisted into a noise of strangulation, the consequence of suppressing the moment of weakness. Resolute to the extreme, Jac pushed back her feelings and did nothing, in fear that if she did she may crumple and fall. The nurse kept his eyes locked onto her, assessing her without a hint of emotion; his professional aura remained strong, even if she could see his fists tightly clenching and unclenching as he restrained himself from nearing. For a second, she wondered why he wasn't talking, nattering on about their beautiful daughter, babbling at one hundred miles per hour, but she brushed that aside as new father nerves.

"Where's Emmy?" She finally choked out. Jonny humoured her with a strained smile.

"They've taken her for tests, Jac. She wasn't breathing properly. She'll be back soon." Satisfied, the consultant nodded to herself and her heart halted its relay.

"You look like crap," she said simply when she glanced upon him for the second time. A darkened abyss of tormented nights and drunken shenanigans had furrowed under his eyes and it had spread like some demented disease towards his chin, procuring him a rugged beard that had been left unshaven for weeks. She must have not noticed the growth before, she must have been too preoccupied with pregnancy, as she couldn't recall when it had started.

"You don't look too good yourself," he dared to reply, before silently cursing himself for his idiocy. To his relief, her horns had receded and her expression remained unnervingly stoic. The truth was, he hated that more than if she had battered him with a torrent of abuse. Even then he could have caught a glimpse of just a scrap of emotion through her wave of anger. Now there was nothing. It was like her battery had expired, but, he hoped, it was only in need of charging.

"You're not the one who had to push a ten pound baby out of their abnormally sized va-"

Jonny cut her off with a frown, "Hey, hey, she was only a wee one, you know that." He new the drill, new his well-rehearsed routine.

"She's a kid. That's generally the size they come in. You can't order an extra large from Argos." He noted her words with a nod, it was becoming quite the habit nowadays. "But I would doubt that with Emmy if I didn't know any better."

He had been glad to find that her sarcasm still reigned dominant when he had visited first, though he knew and could understand why it needed to go. It was her means of defence, the key to the locked chest of doubts secured within her. And, eventually, all of her insecurities, her fears, her crushed aspirations, would scatter into the atmosphere as one nebulous catalyst for a war pitted deep inside her mind. But he had secretly sworn he would be there to pick up the pieces.

It wasn't companionable silence in which they sat in. For Jac though, she seemed content just waiting, always waiting, for her daughter, comfortable with his presence, however, for Jonny, he tensed up at the stillness of the air, knowing full well it wouldn't last long. Couldn't last long. There was always that unanswerable question, that elephant in the room; it would strike him every time he came, every 5:00 o'clock, like her mind was in constant replay. He could see it forming on her lips, and he inhaled, unable to breathe.

"Urgh please tell me Levy hasn't shown up with a bouquet and a tray of chocolate?" She exclaimed, throwing the treat a disgusted look. "Does he really think I'm still on the sugar when I've ballooned up five sizes? Five." Jonny let the exhalation deflate his chest, relief setting in. Sacha came next, he seemed to live in her subconscious. How could he forget?

"Five? Really? I don't believe it." He threw in some flirtation, he knew she liked that. "You don't look a size past twenty." And then he playfully toyed with her, knowing his counter would be met with the same old glare.

"Oh haha, how would you like not to father anymore children?" A flash of sadness claimed his features, but he fought back his composure. These conversations would last for mere minutes before the team discovered her lucidness, yet he always made the best out of them, for his sake as well as Jac's.

"As much as I would like the Dons to lift the league cup." He knew before he said it that his personal jibe would be was lost on her. Off her bemused eyebrow, he collected himself. "Football," he explained, recognizing that one word was enough to turn her face sour.

"If you think that you'll get to whisk my child away to a man-invested hoodlum-fest to relive your salad days, then you have another thing coming. They're full to the brim with happy-slappy thugs who seem to think that they can spew out any kind of language like a tourettes patient who's been dosed up on crack, and my daughter is _not_ going to be exposed to that kind of lingo if it's the last thing I do."

Jonny saw that he had brought about the end; her garbled prattle would soon fade because she would have exhausted her word count for the day, or a couple of days if he was unlucky. His suspicions were confirmed when she scrunched her face up, her mind playing tricks on her. The hardened grasp on the bed strengthened and her knuckles turned a shocking white. She knew that something was wrong, but her muddled memories lead her up the garden path throughout her own head. She was helpless. Lurching forward, her stomach undulated nauseously at this new sensation of vulnerability. She wanted to cry out, shriek, scream at the daemons that haunted her, but how could she do so when their vague features left her more mystified than ever? Jonny crossed the room in an instant and held her body in his strong hold. What stunned him most was that he was not in the least shocked that she was physically trembling against him; he had become accustomed to it - it was the same old ritual day in and day out. He looked towards the door in advance, realising what came next...

**TO BE CONTINUED **


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for the reviews so far guys :) And here's chapter two, sorry if it's a little less well written than the last chapter x**

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Dr Kozinsky invaded the small space before bowing her head to her colleague, as was her custom. She allowed herself a quiet sigh, gearing up half-heartedly. Her crimson hair fell and framed her face with a sharp edge and she reopened the file, Jac's file, with a slow, reluctant turn.

"So, Jac, how are we feeling today?" Her American twang hit with an animated vibe, causing the consultant to shudder, startled. Jonny abhorred the patronising sound of the therapist's voice, and he was almost certain Jac did too, even if he couldn't claim to know her thoughts, her feelings. If he had, he could have seen this coming, could have, would have, stopped this. There were a lot of things he now regretted, but loving the broken consultant never once fell, or would fall, into that category.

"Hunky-dory," Jac had regained use of her vocal chords, which was a start. She turned towards Jonny, eyes searching, expression rife with defencelessness. "Where's Emmy?"

"Like I said, she'll be back in a second." He knew that he had lied to her, and he knew that his smile didn't quite reach his eyes, but he couldn't help it. She wasn't going to remember anyway, so what was the harm? He had made a mistake the first time, told her straight, only for the truth to be wiped from her memory. His facial muscles must have began to deteriorate after all the time he spent compelling false grins upon his lips, but that paled into insignificance when compared to the guilt he felt. They were only white lies he convinced himself, little, insignificant twists of reality, but the look in her eyes told him otherwise.

Dr Kozinsky didn't respond to their conversation; she read and re-read the file before her, unaware of their tension.

He allowed his eyes to wander across the green folder of notes, across the name inscribed in silver ink: Jacqueline Naylor. He often pondered what secrets were hidden within the crisp pages of those sheets, what horrendous things lurked there that had made her the way she was. Certainly, he would never know.

With a close gaze, Dr Kozinsky examined the fresh set of scratches sliced across the consultant's chest in a shudder of pain amongst the shallow scarring of a previous session of panic-attacks; they were red raw and seemed almost near to bleeding. The network of old wounds had besieged her arm and it was those that nearly brought tears to Jonny's eyes when he forgot his vow not to look.

"Did you do these to yourself again Jac?" The doctor enquired gently, though the poignant question was left in the air for a few minutes.

Jac couldn't understand the sombre stare she was under, nor the ludicrous question she was asked. Of course she wouldn't hurt herself, who would be that idiotic? Somehow Jonny seemed to believe in the therapist's words and she frowned at him, confused at his lack of loyalty. She withdrew herself from him, betrayed, as she had nestled into his body without a thought. All of her energy was focused on just the one thing: her baby, her child, her Emmy. The little sunshine had captivated her from the get-go, and the way she had smiled immediately was instantly mesmerizing - something she would never forget. She had only given birth mere hours ago for Christ sake, and had seen her daughter snuggle into her. Hurting, she extracted herself even more away from his strong arms and crossed her own. She knew that an answer was needed, and, in haste, she supplied one, sadly confident in her words.

"No, of course not," she argued self-assuredly, "Who do you take me for? Take it up with Emmy. That's if you want your life to be living hell." Her statement was laced with underlying threats, she was a mother protecting her daughter after all. Jonny couldn't meet her gaze. "Your loitering is making my room look untidy, so whatever it is you're here for, get it over with quickly before my patience wears thin. Oh and spare me the pity look, I'm not a dustbin baby, or haven't you seen a woman give birth before? Maybe that's the reason I seem, I don't know, physically drained?"

Solemnly, Dr Kozinsky shook her head, displeased at the lack of progress. Before this case, she had been celebrated in her field, renowned for her eccentric yet effective methods, but then the infrangible fortresses of Jac Naylor had crashed into her world of expensive champagne and published papers.

"Of course not?" She repeated, hoisting up a sceptical eyebrow. "You do know my definition is an over-paid and qualified mind-reader?" The doctor thought for a moment. "My job involves a hefty amount of mind-reading these days. It seems people aren't as open as they used to be."

"When was that? The dark ages?" The younger woman tied to slaughter the doctor's boundaries with carefully chosen words, to no apparent avail. Kozinsky's only reaction was to calmly observe her patient, knowing full well her defence tactics and the endless procedure of resistance.

"There's no point lying Jac, to me or to yourself. Lying isn't going to make things better. Lying isn't going to prove a point. You jolly well might be able to pretend that everything's fine, but each untruth will build, build so high that, eventually, there will be no point of return from such a fabrication." She paused, but her speech seemed to have little effect. "They say doctors make the worst patients, and, before I met you, I would have agreed wholeheartedly. Now, though, I don't think there's such a thing as a bad patient. Whether they be the nicest person on earth, or gung-ho hooligans, we get our heads into gear and treat them without judgement. We don't spare a thought for how good or bad they are, we're just concerned with the person on paper; they live through their notes, their medical history, for us doctors. So, that idiom is completely redundant now, right? Doctors don't make the worst patients, they make the worst people. Not worse in the sense of immorality, but worse in the sense of composition. We work to save people's lives, because we can't save ourselves."

Dr Kozinsky's sojourn of words let the silence linger again; there was no endless tirade of verbal violence from the consultant, nor was there a vocal sign of vulnerability - there was only nothingness, vast and infinite nothingness. Her expression never once altered during the impact of truthful assertion, it remained vacant and unfeeling, and her eyes locked onto the space above Jonny's head, as if willing an escape route to emerge from the white-washed walls of the hospital room. It wasn't as if she had not heard the doctor, of course she had - she wasn't deaf by all accounts - but her mind seemed unable to register any inch of emotion, because, if she did, that would trigger the tempest of all storms to rear its head and flush out all secreted memories. Memories so buried into the darkest pits of her psyche that even she didn't know what they contained.

Dr Kozinsky sighed heavily. "Right, so you know the drill, can you tell me your full name? Your age?"

Jac almost snorted at the insanity of it all. What was the old crank doing? Testing to see if she was a fit mother? She was mentally fine, wasn't she? She'd only been working a couple of days ago, so what were these questions in aid of?

"Jac Naylor, and I have no intention of telling you," she retorted curtly. Jonny had to smile at this - some things never changed.

A vibration in his pocket caught him off guard. Losing his hand within the confines of the dark chasm, he hoisted the offender up and into his palm. Dr Kozinsky seemed not to notice, whereas Jac was more than a little distracted. Whatever conversation the two other women were having was immediately lost to him as he noted the sender.

"Jac, what I'm going to tell you next might shock you, but I can't do this any other way, and, believe me, I've tried. You're in denial, an extreme denial, but still a denial of sorts," Dr Kozinsky began, growing tiresome.

Jac felt herself pause unexpectedly, those words having connected the electrical signals in her brain; the organ whirred, endeavouring to make sense out of the haze systematically, yet failed, science offering no facilitation. However, they soon had embarked on a treacherous lane of memory, squeezing through the network of capillaries, until finally they actually formed something concrete: she had heard those words before, almost a year ago.

Oh, of course, it was almost a year ago she had lost them. No, it was 24 hours ago, right?

Right?

**TO BE CONTINUED **


	3. Chapter 3

**One year ago...**

She swept in, body lissom and swan-like in movement; she had combated the icy chills pricking at her skin with an over-sized coat and a scarf.

It was the month of Febuary. The falling snow had sheeted the ground, cascading down the serrated rise of the hills with a pallet of whites, propelled by the winter winds. Sky grey, the outside space was dark with overhanging clouds, and, sometimes, they would undulate like the spine of some gargantuan sea monster, casting shadows which were dark black amongst the whitened ground. The season had been long and freezing, with various dry spells amongst the dominant coldness of the weather.

Dropping the opened missive onto her table, Sharon disposed of her garments, which led to a hurricane of paperwork; the sheets thrashed in disarray, much to her displeasure. She had known patients to have frantically convulsed as they did, rampant on the hardened floor, yet those persons were substantially less trouble. The psychologist emptied the contents of her bin with unusual familiarity - a vestige of working in a hospital - and shoved dozens of scrap notes down into their end.

She had been given a new assignment, a challenge, a referral. After refuting her sessions at first, the patient's second sitting was today. An incident had occurred, a horrifying and poignant incident. No one had smiled that day, not one person - even Chantelle wore a face of stone, which was a sentiment really. Sharon gathered three objects up in her arms and plunked them down onto the table, before carefully aligning them. When the clock struck one, she began to wonder whether her patient would actually turn up.

A knock on the door set her conflicting thoughts straight; she kept her back staunch and her posture upright to give a sense of sleek professionalism.

"Come in," she called, readied.

Jac slithered into the room, sticking to the walls as if they provided some demented version of cover; each step was timid yet strong - she was a living oxymoron, if one compared her to literature. After a motion to sit, the consultant took up the chair at the far end, struck down and exhausted by returning rounds of emotions. Such feelings were usually said to be a fallacy when it came to her, yet the latent remnant of a heart said otherwise. She could barely remember what had happened that day, but she knew what it had meant.

They had died.

Jac Naylor was a fortress of a woman. Her mind drew up chains in which she bound herself, chains so constricting that they denied her of emotion, feeling, sentiment. With every mounting effort to escape, they tightened, squeezing her airway so that her chest was racked with strangled breaths, at least internally. She had built fortifications, the primary line of defence; they were so very high even a direct hit would fail to dent the stone. She was a challenge, and Dr Kozinsky was ready for a challenge.

Jac's attention was grasped by the entities that had been laid so meticulously on the table before her: a penny coin, a satsuma, and an orange. She let herself become mildly interested and her eyebrow flicked up.

"I want you to pick one," Sharon invited calmly, "in proportion to the size of your pain. Can you do that for me?"

Jac raised an eyebrow, but, deciding that there wasn't a way out, reached over and tapped the coin softly though finitely. Sharon lifted the penny and turned it over in her hands.

"You might think your fears are tiny, Jac, but if you take this coin for example, your British penny, and you cast it from the Eiffel Tower, that very small, and perhaps insignificant, thing will kill someone, like a bullet from a gun." She paused for effect. "You see, it isn't how great the pain is, it's how far you let yourself fall that gets you in the end."

Her arms sagged from their position stretched defensively across her chest and her strangled breaths dissipated into the compilation of silence. A quick punt to her mind left her struggling for distinct humanity - she was a drone, empty and blank, until her child emerged wordlessly from the recesses of her memory; how Emmy had taken a shallow breath and locked her eyes shut, retaining the last few drops of gold-dust-like energy, how her lifeless body was snatched from her, and how long it had been since her world had came crashing down.

_"You're in denial, an extreme denial, but still a denial of sorts."_

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**Present Day**

"It's been a year Jac," Dr Kozinsky continued gravely. Jac prickled, she had given birth _24 hours ago._ "Yet there hasn't been any progress with this. I'm going to have to be straight with you, as much as it goes against my beliefs, but you're obviously of a sound mind... now."

The psychologist's words took more than a moment to be processed, drifting in and out of sanity as if floating on a cloud. A _year_? How could a _year_ have passed? Her child was so minute when snuggled into her arms the last time that they had been in contact, so much so that even the infamous Jac Naylor was frightened she would break under her slender fingers. She hadn't been the size of a twelve month old baby, she hadn't any teeth, and she certainly hadn't been able to hold her head up unsupported, let alone crawl. This doctor was batty, crazed, cuckoo. But there was something there in the back of her mind, niggling away at her self-assured manner, that said otherwise. She could place what this doubt was, or where it stemmed from, but it was there in physicality, and that was what eat her inside.

She saw Jonny jump, eyes wide. "Don't tell her! She's not in any shape of form as ready as she makes out, trust me."

Sharon didn't acknowledge him; her eyes studied the woman in front of her, who's own ogled the space behind her head.

"Don't tell me what?" she demanded agitatedly, folding her arms staunch against her chest. Jonny twitched and niftily bounded forward onto the duvet, which formed no crease despite his profoundness. Instead, Sharon wrinkled her forehead as Jac rested her hand in a different position.

"Who are you talking to Jac?" The consultant's gaze snapped infuriately towards her.

"Well obviously the invisible man, who do you think I'm talking too?" Ludicrous as it was, Sharon seemed to have gone blind.

The psychologist sighed. "We don't have another Mr Griffin at Holby or I would know about it."

Jac started wildly, convulsing at the words; her legs thrashed, bucked off those who tried to restrain her like a spooked stallion, and she thrust her head too and throw, willing for it not to be true. Nurses skidded in, reinforcements of sorts, armed with sedatives, not with calming assurances.

She let them have it.

Each strike, jab, blow, resulted in a squirming of internal organs and the metallic taste of warm blood to batter their tongues. Conventionality did not have any place there, only blind terror and the struggle of human life. Nothing could hinder her startling human verve, nothing accept the dose of sedative struck into her skin; she fell back and watched as Jonny, her Jonny, faded away.

**TO BE CONTINUED **


	4. Chapter 4

**Here is the penultimate chapter guys, (I think). Thank you for all of the lovely reviews this fic has received so far - I really look forward to your feedback :) So, here we go, allons-y! **

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**One year ago...**

Shoulders hunched, he practically propelled himself into the car seat, landing askew with legs spread out at odd angles. Cursing, his numbed fingers fumbled with the door handle, and he eventually managed to yank it shut, albeit straight onto his foot. He swore loudly, but never allowed himself to check his injury, before booting the plastic interior with a inept jab to be rid of the pain of his needed limb. Finally, the smash of the door pummelled the morning quiet and he kicked the ignition into gear, almost twisting his hand off in the process. Speeding down the road, he swerved in and out the traffic, criss-crossing the lanes with no thought but one: he had to get to Holby, he had to get to Jac. He had no time to whack the heating up, so he bore the cold with admirable resolve.

It was happening.

Quickly this thought brought a grin to his face, and he attempted to control his pre-father jitters with a few deep breathes. Not content with doing nothing, his fingers lightly tapped against the steering wheel, drumming away the minutes he had lost of the labour. A whistle caught his lips off guard and he beamed outwardly at the tune, it was a lullaby, their lullaby. Little did Jac know, but every night, when she was nestled in his hold snoring soundly, he would arch his arm firmly around her ballooning abdomen and whistle melodiously to his baby, his little daughter. She would be a daddy's girl, he knew it. These moments wouldn't last long, for the resultant kick would interrupt Jac's sleep and spark off a wild-eyed accusation war, however they were the most precious things in the world to him.

His speed clocked past seventy and he felt himself bow forward with adrenaline, stream-lining his body.

He had got the call in the early hours of the morning; a jolted Mo had blasted down the phone to him some of the minor details. He'd bounded with delight down the stairs, giddy yet panicky, nearly tumbling and securing himself a nasty wound in the process. His skin was drenched with sweat, and he bolted across the garden, sodden by mud, with effortless vigour, so much so that sludge clang rigidly to his shoes.

And now he was flying down the motorway, foot smashing down hard on the pedal.

The rain had began to pelt down, draining onto the windscreen like an oil-painting awash with water. He couldn't see. He was totally and utterly sightless. Springing on his wipers, they did nothing, nothing at all but obscure his vision more.

A dark shape careered forward, blinded by the ongoing storm.

They were on the wrong side of the road.

And a crash closed the deal.

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A thin tongue of lightning, electrically hysterical, hurtled across the sky and licked between the clouds, cackling with frenzied triumph. It pooled into a plenum of light for a few mere seconds; the illumination skulked towards the tangled cage of metal limbs and skid marks, showing proudly the tragedy to the world. A crumpled Ford Focus rested limp on its side, swallowed whole by a darkened, waterlogged ditch. The driver risked a few movements, before beating the door open and collapsing onto the drenched ground. A lone spectator dashed over and prised a phone from her purse, ensuring the casualty that an ambulance was on its way.

Beside this, a blue VW Golf levelled undetected, having been thrown aside by the impact. The driver, the expectant father, lied stone still and cold. No one came to help him. No one even noticed. It was as if he had melted into the dark background of his car, arms flaccid, his foot no longer painful. The thud of helping shoes mingled with his strangled breathes, spilling into the compilation of sound as meagre background noise. Blinding pain sent shockwaves through his skull as his energy drained away, the energy that should have been kept for his child. His eyes took to fluttering, and he rested them on the crumbled picture of his daughter's scan, black and white, so unlike his future. This last sight brought a sad smile to his lips, and his mind envisaged what could have been, what should have been. Her first words, the first time she toddled, her first day at school. He heard their voices in his head with crystal clarity, urging his daughter on. _Come on, you can do it, walk for daddy._ He would puff out his chest, exceptionally proud, when she tottered towards him; he would hold open his arms and encase her with cuddles, praises, and kisses. And now that had been robbed cruelly from him - he couldn't even prise up his legs to walk himself. His lips wound around a startled breath but were unable to hold it in place; the light was snatch out his pupils, the darkness tearing him from life.

He was gone.

He had died.

* * *

Enveloped in a cocoon of pink, the tiny person wriggled, entwining her fingers around those of another's; she stretched out her arms and reached for one sole singularity, her mother's slender hands, and bound them together by way of emotion. Her tiny features rolled into a slight yawn, which caused her nose to wrinkle. Peering into the bundle, her mother pressed her cold lips onto the crest of the child's head and her daughter earned herself a smile, the first of many small indications of feeling. Her eyes were sealed shut, blotting out the room's interior, and had yet to open. The first, and last, hold was a moment that never should have been broken, but fate had decided to do so without a thought for the consequences.

A registrar barged into the quiet as creator of sound, and fell short of the bed by many metres for the sight was one she hadn't prepared herself to see. As she looked upon the newborn, she could only see one thing: _him_, only and fundamentally him. It tore her in two, so much so that she found herself retreating frenziedly from the picture in a complete and utter denial of reality. Tears had run her face ragged, and the salty remnant stung her dried lips with the fierceness of rat poison; she felt the words cling to her throat as the mother swung her head up to meet her gaze.

"It's Jonny," Mo squeezed out.

The subsequent explanation came in mangled tumbles, leaking into the mother's hearing as white noise. Muffled, incoherent white noise, but still the meaning was clear. And suddenly her child enraged her, she was him, she was a part of him, and he was gone. She couldn't speak. She couldn't let a tear fall. She even had to remind herself to breathe, and, once she had, the exhalations spewed out ragged and irregular. Her arms constricted violently around the small baby, with no conscious control from the brain; she was in a state of complete oblivion, devoid of the oasis of hope that her daughter spawned. That oasis was wholly and utterly out of reach, like an outsider's trench was to a soldier darting across no man's land. Her little girl frantically shuddered in her clutches, the pressure of her lids against her eyeballs mounting with every passing second. Mo launched at the alarm and squashed it between her fingers; the sound rang out loud, and two men responded to the call with less urgency than was considered proper. Tugging the child, she was transferred safely into one's arms, and, then, she was taken away.

The consultant recoiled into her bed just as she had recoiled from reality - that cold, hard reality pressing down on her. She brought her knees to her chest and formed a protective semi-circle with her arms, a shield of sorts, and rocked slightly, manically. Without knowing, she began to shout - knocking the resultant visitors back with vile offence that had blurred from her vocabulary. She blamed everyone, and even Mo, who stood there physically trembling, was dealt the full force of her pain.

In that moment, she wished for his touch, his adoration, his cheeky grin, his chaotic hair, his wild flirtation, yet the reminiscing only reminded her of what was lost: the love of her life, her everything. She would never seen him alive, breathing, smiling, again. Her daughter would grow up without a father just like she had done.

"I want to see him," she struggled to make the words sound determined, resolute. "I need to see him."

It was a demand, of sorts. Voice cracked upon no point of return, she pressed her lips together in the hope that they wouldn't allow a garrotted cry to be heard; of course, the piercing cry erupted internally, the only indication of such a phenomenon being the haunted look that had infected her eyes and dragged her lids down in rout. She hauled herself upright, splaying her feet onto the floor, and set about lugging her heavy body on two legs, though her lead limbs deemed that almost implausible. That was why she was grateful when her registrar offered a shuddering hand, and that was why, when she was firmly on hard ground, she spent seconds, minutes even, teaching herself how to walk again, like he would have taught their daughter. She didn't care that she had accepted help, she didn't care that she was in dire need of morphine, she only cared about her emotional needs, how she had to see him for the last time.

A conclusion. Closure. The end.

A nurse, a nurse she didn't know, lead her towards him, through the door to her left, through the winding complex of corridors, through her grieving colleagues. He was male, and she could almost see comparisons between him and the love of her life, though he was faceless to her, a shadow, mass, gray mass, unlike Jonny, her concrete rock, the man that held her together.

They had stopped before she could comprehend the journey. The faceless body proffered her a small smile, which would have been herculean to reciprocate. Her clothes clang to her through sweat, and she crunched her fists into balls, teetering on the edge - that nearing edge between sanity and the tumble into madness. She even contemplated running, but she gravitated towards him, and, somehow, she was moving. Moving back towards actuality. The handle cold between her fingers, she rammed it down and let the door teeter on its hinges for a few crucial minutes. This was getting far too real, yet she felt herself slip inside, out of duty more than anything else.

The walk over grew to be suddenly exhausting, and she became aware of the eerie quiet; she praised herself for every step, each becoming more draining than the last. And when she was a foot away, she snapped her eyes shut before closing in, feeling herself crack, splinter at the heart. She tried to settle her composure before she slowly tugged them open.

He looked - well, he looked like him.

Even so, she felt the air vacate her lungs; it was like the organ wished for her to suffer, becoming a fleeting time-bomb. She felt her hackles augment, stretched across the dip of her neck, and she lost all feeling in her legs.

His face was pale, too pale, so pale that it sickened her. Of course his eyes were still that gorgeous green, yet they had lost that spark that had made him, him. Tears had fallen without her notice; she allowed them to slither down the curvature of her cheekbone, she allowed them to slip past her steely barriers, just for him. He had that affect on her, even now.

It was wrong, so wrong. He should have been grinning giddily at her, wiping away her tears with his thumb, begging to see his daughter for the first time, to hold her in his arms. She would even have tolerated a couple of Adele tunes to have him back again.

Approaching him tentatively, she ran a finger down the arch of his face.

"You idiot," she muttered, blinking back the tears. "I turn my back for one second, just one, let you skedaddle back to that godforsaken dump you call 'home' and you go and get yourself k-" She choked up at that word, that word of extreme finality. "Give the man a gold star."

She reached to interlace her digits through his tattered tresses, and removed the small brush from the side cabinet, unravelling the knotted curls that had furrowed into his locks with delicate strokes.

_His hair was always a mess. Not now though, he had to look his best now. _

She caressed the remaining parts of his face, impressing every feature, every imperfection, every hint of Jonny, into her subconscious through the medium of touch.

Clenching her jaw, she spoke softly, "You nearly have the whole shebang - two out of four isn't bad, trust me." She screwed her face into a smile. "You know you could nail those roses to my door, but my foot is down at puppygate."

The same nurse entered in that moment, brandishing a translucent bag, which she captured almost immediately. They were his belongings, a part of him, something to treasure. Pulling out a crumpled package, she turned over the label in her hands.

_To wiggle,_

_Love from daddy x_

A throttled sob caught in her throat.

They had never decided on a name for their precious daughter, and he had demanded an epithet of sorts, so wiggle, derived from her later movements, had stuck. It was stupid really, she decided through reflecting, that she couldn't envisage her child to have any name other than that one.

She slit the wrapping paper with her nail, down the curve of its spine, and something tumbled into her hands.

The toy rabbit flopped, its ears drooping off her fingers and its glassy eyes fixated on hers; grey feet were patch worked with pink, and the skewed nose was upturned. It was a gift edging on perfection, and it was from _him_.

And that thought sent her back to her daughter, and the weight that wasn't in her arms.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello. I would just like to say thank you for all of the wonderful reviews I have received for this fic, and I hope you enjoy the last chapter :) x**

**Oh and I apologise for the amount of speech :P **

* * *

**Present day...**

The child gurgled, rife with untainted and unexplained gaiety, yet such gaiety was somewhat naive, as the young often are, for the circumstances that had lead to her arrival were a complete tragedy. Cradled in arms that were so wrong but so familiar, the tiny being knew nothing of the sorrow of life; she need not have to worry on such dismal thoughts as those of death and loss, she merely concerned herself with the routine of meals, sleep, and play. The owner of those arms, however, knew of life, knew the pain of existence, of bereavement, and yet endeavoured not to dwell on it, to dwell on such history would have almost certainly placed the rope around her neck.

A year on, conversely, she had began to move on, move on, but never forget, though she couldn't say the same about her colleague.

As one, the cheerless couple stepped into the hospital room, across the boundaries between the carpet and wooden floor - across that razor sharp edge of sanity and into madness. The psychologist had informed them unofficially of her patient's stability and her state of extreme denial; this had came with a warning as to protect their emotional wellbeing, a warning which they had not taken heed of.

Sprawled along the bed sheets, the red-headed consultant had taken the concept of vulnerability, which used to be such a rarity, to an outstanding level. Such an idea was sure to take the air out of the registrars' lungs, and, when their eyes, or more their minds, registered what was being seen, that it did. The consultant had sewn shut her lids in an attempt to either retain some precious energy, or to block out the actual evil of the outside world.

Thankful for this, Sacha took up the chair at the far end, confident facade splintering, whereas Mo stood by the edge of the bed, grasping her godchild. The minute being instantly wriggled, twisting to the auburn haired woman, donning a plain look of wonder; she thrust out her clench fist and aimed her digit towards the consultant in an unspoken question. She didn't need to say more.

Mo sighed. "Let's have story time Emmy. You'll like this one, I know it." Even though the odds of the child comprehending what was being said were next to none, the registrar continued, hoping to earn herself some kind of closure instead.

"Once upon a time, there was an evil, ginger witch who ruled the lands of Darwin with an iron fist. Her castle had many, many walls - so many that even her best friend Sacha the jester could not get in. People thought that she was carved out of an iceberg, because she was really really cold. But, one day, a handsome, Scottish prince rode up on his white horse and found a magic door in the stone of the castle. He managed to sneak through and destroy the walls from the inside, which was really clever, especially for him. God knows how, but he did. When he got to the heart of the castle, he found out that really the evil, ginger witch wasn't an evil, ginger witch after all - her mother had put a nasty spell on her. After a while, he broke the spell and the evil, ginger witch turned into the most beautiful Queen you would ever see, both inside and out. He showed that evil isn't born, it is made. And then the beautiful, ginger Queen and the handsome, Scottish prince wrote to the magician asking for a child. He blessed them with you. But, when the beautiful, ginger Queen was ready to make you their princess, a very mean dragon called Ford Focus took your daddy away from her so he couldn't come back. The very mean dragon cast the Queen under a different spell! After that, your AuntieMo, (your fairy godmother), and Uncle Sacha, (your own jester), have to care for you until your mother, or our beautiful, ginger Queen, can defeat the wicked enchantment. And, trust me on this little one, she will."

In a nostalgic pause, Mo could no longer exhibit the strong front that had taken her twelve months to perfect. She savoured the moments like these, where she could pretend everything was normal, fine, that she was only holding her godchild briefly while the father skipped through the rest of the hospital to share his news. On that notion, his image became the only one in her line of sight; he was always there, in her mind, guiding her.

"Your father was the most precious and beautiful person I have ever met," she started to say without a thought. "He was so looking forward to meeting you. He would grin every time you came up in conversation, and he wasn't ashamed of that either. Who would be? You're perfect. Of course you are, you're his daughter. You have his cheeky grin, and his hair. Oh his hair. Sometimes I wanted to whip out my straightener and sort out the mess on his head. He would claim that it was the new style, but I knew he just couldn't be bothered to run a comb through it in the mornings. I hope you aren't like that, I'm sure your mother wouldn't tolerate laziness, so I'll try not too, just like her."

Jac stirred as if her subconscious mind had detected the solicitously chosen words, but she was as absent in that reality as the child's father was. The registrar considered that epochal movement as a sign, and, as egregious as it was, she began to tell her godchild stories of what she would never have.

"Your dad should match your energy no doubt you will have instead. You should have races across the garden and Jac should click her tongue at the pair of you, because of how stupid his face should look. You should have been a daddy's girl, I know it. And before that stage, he should have grimaced at your messy nappy, like Sacha used to do, and then he should have waved it in front of Jac's nose just to annoy her. He should be there when you say your first word, take your first steps, and then wave you off to school, throwing his chest out proudly, and probably yelling happily at you across the playground like a big kid, showing up your mother in the process. He should be there when you move up to big school, all height and no weight, just like your mother. He should fetch the shotgun at the sight of your first boyfriend and frustrate himself when he can't help you with your homework. He should be there at your graduation, capturing pictures at one hundred miles per hour because he didn't want to miss a second, and he should be there with you, arm in arm, and take you up the aisle. The grandchildren should have a special granddad who would smuggle them sweets when you aren't looking and take them to their first football game, the Hibs, even though they wouldn't know Scotland existed. Jonny should have had a lot of things. He deserved it. But he was taken away from us before he even had the chance. I could get you to watch Lion King and have you believe that he's up there, in the stars, but Scar over there would complain about putting silly ideas in your head, but it'll be our silly idea, and _his _too. His silly idea about spirits and the afterlife might be the one thing that you need when you're older, when you miss him." She leant lower and whispered, "And I won't tell if you don't."

After the consultant's episodic stirs into consciousness, she conquered the sedative once and for all; she heaved her eyes open with a pull of will and let them settle on her visitors. Sacha rose immediately and swabbed the trickling trail of dribble from her chin; she jutted it at his touch and nodded in thanks. No words were said between the trio, no words needed to be said, no words wanted to be said - Jac's frame of mind being a causative factor.

"Mama." It was merely a soft murmur, yet a recognisable metamorphosis from the jargon of before. "Mama." The consultant turned, with a cornucopia of pride, to her little daughter, whom she hadn't seen for months, only to find the recipient of such a status not directed to her, but to the registrar. "Mama?" The young child squeezed her face into a smile at the other woman, who reciprocated by praising her for her first word, failing to disregard the awkwardness.

With a nod of sombre acceptance, Jac withdrew back into herself, wearing a seemingly apathetic expression even though she was screaming within.

Her daughter was lost to her.

And then came that elephant in the room, that looming question, which should have never been asked. Mouth dry, the consultant cursed her scratchy throat as she obliged the query up through her oesophagus and out.

"Where's Jonny?"

The clock's hands reached five.


End file.
